Cozy Phones Review

We were recently sent some Cozy Phones headband headphones to review. We tested them out over the bank holiday weekend, when I took the girls on a trip up to my parent's "other house" in Co. Leitrim. It takes two-and-a-half hours to get there and I'm always looking for new ways to keep them entertained on the journey.

We play the usual eye-spy and car-spotting games and I always have our Travel Pack and a few toys with us, but now that the girls are getting a bit older and have developed an interest in music, I decided to get them a little MP3 player each so that they can listen to their favourite tunes and I can have the car stereo to myself for once.

Cozy Phones are basically a fleece headband fitted with removable, flat 'speakers' (that, according to my music nerd husband, sound really great). To fit them, all you need to do is to put the headband on the child, use a piece of tape to mark where his/her ears are, remove the headband and wiggle the speakers into the position marked by the tape. This means they are comfortable and fully customisable for everyone. The headphone cord is also covered, which means it doesn't tangle as easily and the fact that the speakers are removable means that the headband is completely washable.

To say they were a hit is a huge understatement. The girls are absolutely thrilled with them. They love the designs, they are soft and comfortable to wear and they can manage fitting and adjusting them themselves easily. The car journey, made significantly longer than usual because of holiday traffic, was declared "the quickest ever" because they were so absorbed in listening to music and watching the world go by.The Cozy Phones were also useful while we were away and the girls needed a little time alone (twins don't get along well 100% of the time!) and I loved listening to them singing their hearts out and trying to guess what they were listening to despite them constantly misquoting lyrics.

Lile and Sábha feel very grown up with their new equipment and they've been brilliant at folding their Cozy Phones up neatly and stowing them in the little handbags I dug out of their dress-up stuff especially for them. It's really the first time they've ever had a real use for a handbag, so it's quite a special thing.And what are they listening to? Well... basically, a lot of stuff that we happened to have on an old hard drive that we transferred onto their players. They're not yet at the stage where they are aware of popular/current music - so they are stuck with their parent's influences for now!

This is their current playlist:

Blue - Joni MitchellNancy & Lee - Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood (Sábha's current favourite)Angel Dust - Faith No MoreHunky Dory and Tin Machine 2 - David BowieDoolittle - The PixiesDuty Now For The Future - DevoBillion Dollar Babies - Alice CooperThe Time Has Come - Anne BriggsSunday at Devil Dirt - Isobel Campell and Mark LaneganThe Very Best of Prince - Prince (obviously!)The Soft Parade - The DoorsOctober Rust - Type O Negative (Lile's current favourite)Dangerous Magical Noise - The DirtbombsHymns in the Key of 666 - HellsongsBlue Album - Weezerand a handful more, like Janis Joplin, Brian Eno, Cocteau Twins and other... erm... eclectic... choices.We figure they'll eventually weed out what they don't like and we'll add more of what they do and we'll give things like audio books and podcasts a try as we go along. We have several, much longer, road trips planned for over the summer break and I'm sure the Cozy Phones will be an essential part of our travel kit from now on. I also want a pair for myself!Disclosure: I was sent two Cozy Phones for the purposes of review. All opinions are my own/Lile and Sábha's and I was not paid to give them.